


Supernatural Causes

by 27dragons, tisfan



Series: Forever Home [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: But not 100 percent a dick, Gladiators, M/M, Revolution, Tony Stark is a God, Werewolf AU, and that might be literal, intergalactic field trip, loki is an asshole, space travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25211719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Tony's life is about as normal as it can get with a werewolf husband and an adopted daughter who is actually the personification of a cosmic cube. Which is to say, not very normal at all. So Tony is not especially phased when Kobik announces one morning that there is a monster in her closet who wants to come to breakfast. He's a little more disturbed when the monster turns out to be Loki, and not happyat allto learn that Loki is visiting to ask his daughter to come help rescue Thor from a mess thatmightbe Loki's fault.No way is Loki taking Kobik off-planet on a potentially dangerous rescue mission. Not without her fathers coming along, anyway.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: Forever Home [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1425667
Comments: 147
Kudos: 301





	1. The Magic Word

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to the Forever Home 'verse! This is the fic that won tisfan's annual "March Madness" fic sequel contest. We hope you enjoy it!

Tony was getting used to rude awakenings. He had been a parent for a little more than half a year, now, after all. And even though Kobik was not actually a five-year-old but some kind of immeasurably ancient and powerful cosmic entity, most of the time, she _acted_ like a five-year-old.

The body shapes the mind, she’d told him once, when he commented on it.

As it happened, Tony was familiar with the concept, because his werewolf husband was prone to eating pigeons out of the air at the park, when he was stuck in his lupine form.

Tony had even experienced it himself, once, though the less said about _that_ incident, the better.

At any rate: rude awakenings. He was used to them. That didn’t mean he _enjoyed_ them.

Still, it was his turn, so when Kobik presented herself at the edge of the bed, bouncing on her toes and demanding breakfast at -- Tony squinted at the clock, dear _gods_ \-- six in the morning, he grunted and sat up and stuffed his feet into slippers and pulled on a robe and shuffled out into the kitchen.

Bucky, who was mostly asleep still, made a grumbling noise as Tony’s passage let cold air in under the blankets and promptly burritoed himself in the pile of comforters.

“There was a monster in my closet,” Kobik reported, straining to get her bowl down from one of the upper cabinets. “Can he come to breakfast?”

It was on the tip of Tony’s tongue to say something about how imaginary monsters didn’t need to eat. But he’d suffered some pretty compelling proof that monsters were very much real. And Kobik, child-like as she seemed, was probably more than capable of defending herself from any Earthly creature, monster or not, and then, because she was almost preternaturally charming, befriending it.

“What... sort of monster are we talking about, here?” Tony hedged. “Bucky ate the last of the steaks last night. Is it the kind of monster who can eat cereal?”

“I suppose he could, if he’d stop trying so hard to pretend to be something he’s not,” Kobik said. “Right now, he probably would eat a mouse, though. Do we have any mouses in the fridge?” She put her bowl down on the table on top of her particular placemat. She would have a complete tantrum if her placemat wasn’t under her bowl. Tony wasn’t sure why she’d gotten so attached to a plastic mat with an elephant on it, but whatever.

“I can pretty definitively say that we are all out of mouse,” Tony said. “Is your monster a cat? Cats aren’t generally considered monsters.” Though how one might have gotten into the apartment, he had no idea.

“No, silly, I know cats aren’t monsters. Well, some cats are, but not usually on this planet. This is a snake. A green one. A really, really green one.”

_Shit_ , Bucky did _not_ like snakes or any other reptiles. Tony was going to have to deal with this quickly, before Bucky decided to get up. “Right, okay, well, snakes are not technically monsters either, but it definitely does not belong in your closet, so let’s go see if we can find it.” He fished out a large pot and a lid, and hoped the snake was not particularly large.

Or venomous.

There was, in fact, a very green snake in the closet, curled up around one of Kobik’s stuffed animals; a good sized wolf that she’d picked out the last time she went to the zoo, and called Buckaroo. That infuriated and amused Bucky by turns.

Well, at least Tony wasn’t going to have to go hunting for it. “Okay,” he said, “be a good monster and just... get in the pot.” He tipped the pot toward the floor and looked around for something to nudge the snake with.

“I’m _not_ a monster,” the snake said. 

“Shit!” Tony jumped back several feet, startled.

Tony might have said that it gave him a flat look, but it was a snake, snakes were always looking flatly. Nature of a thing without eyelids.

“Can we keep it as a pet?” Kobik asked. “It’s funny!”

“Uh, no,” Tony said, “no, I do not think we’re going to be keeping the talking snake,” he said. The question was, how was he going to get rid of it without alerting Bucky?

“Tell her to stop that, and I’ll take myself out, without upsetting your -- oh, you got married, how sweet,” the snake said, nudging at Tony’s hand, serpenty tongue flicking out in the direction of his wedding band.

Tony snatched his hand back and staggered a few more steps back, until his legs collided with the edge of Kobik’s bed. “What the _fuck_.” Damn it, he was supposed to be trying to tone down the swearing. Not that Kobik hadn’t heard everything before, and in more languages than even existed on Earth, but other adults gave him dirty looks if he cussed while she was around, out in public. “What the he--eck are you?”

The snake shifted, rubbing its coils together. “It’s me,” he said. And then shimmered, shivered, and turned into a man. A familiar man. With black hair and green eyes the same color the snake’s scales had been. “Not a monster,” he said.

“That’s not what they say,” Kobik said, sing-song. “Frost giants count as monsters.”

“On Earth, they absolutely do,” Tony said absently, though privately he questioned the _giant_ part of that. Loki was tall, but hardly a _giant_. “What the hell are you doing here?” he added, spitting it out between gritted teeth.

Maybe this was just a dream. Kobik hadn’t actually woken him up yet, and any second now, this whole scene would fade away into nothing.

“Well, as it happens, I was passing through,” Loki said. “I thought I’d check on our mutual friend here, see how she’s adapting to mortal life. And, if you weren’t terribly busy, ask if I might borrow her for a few days. I could use a little… help.”

“Absolutely not,” Tony snapped. He reached out and caught Kobik’s arm, shuffling her behind him. Which was stupid, because she was infinitely more powerful than he was, but something in him couldn’t bear to see her in any danger.

“It wouldn’t take very long at all,” Loki said, a particular wheedling sound in his voice. “I’d take very good care of her, and she’d be back in time for school.”

“She’s not a _car_ , you can’t just _borrow_ her!”

“Well, I don’t want to keep her, she seems very settled and happy here. A much better arrangement than I had with my adopted family, I must say. Truth be told, my adopted brother’s in a speck of trouble, and I need the help,” Loki explained, waving one hand around gracefully. “It’s certainly not beyond her capabilities.”

“It’s absolutely beyond the scope of her current project, however,” Tony growled. “No. Absolutely _not_.”

“What’s all the--” Bucky wandered into the bedroom, yawning, wearing nothing but his sweatpants that were all but falling off. Prone to shape-shifting at inconvenient moments, Bucky wore a lot of sweatpants. They were cheap and easy to replace. “Loki?”

Loki gave an adorable, helpless little smile. “It’s me. Did you miss me?”

“No,” Bucky said.

“Dad,” Kobik said, poking around the side of Tony’s leg. “Shouldn’t we at least ask ‘im what he needs?”

“It sounds to me like he needs your powers to rescue Thor from some mess he’s gotten into,” Tony said, “which is about all I need to know.”

“Only a _little_ power,” Loki said. “She wouldn’t be in any danger at all.”

“What the he-- heck kind of problem did Thor get into that he can’t just blast his way out of? He didn’t seem exactly helpless to me,” Bucky wondered.

“Why are you even asking?” Tony wondered. Letting Loki talk any more than absolutely necessary was a huge mistake. They didn’t need to know the details; Loki was _not_ taking Kobik off on some galactic adventure.

“Uh, well, I mean, you didn’t see the guy much. It’s no wonder our ancestors thought he was a god.”

“They thought this one was a god, too,” Tony returned, waving at Loki irritably. “So much for the wisdom of our ancestors.”

“It depends what you’re looking for in a deity, I suppose,” Loki said. “Or, more exactly, what we were looking for in worshippers. It’s… like having a child, I might imagine. Someone to take care of and who looks up to you.”

“I thought you had like half a dozen children,” Bucky said. “Eight legged horse and all that.”

“Can we not speak of that incident, it was demeaning,” Loki said with a delicate shudder.

“What happened?” Kobik demanded, eyes wide.

“We’ll get you a book of Norse mythology for bedtime stories,” Tony suggested. “In the meantime, Loki, as wonderful as ever to see you -- which is to say not at all -- and give your brother our regards when you’ve dug him out of whatever mess he’s in. _Without_ our daughter.”

“I’m quite afraid that without your daughter’s aid, I won’t be seeing you again,” Loki said. “Or my brother. But I must make the attempt, as, I confess, it’s my fault he’s in this particular muddle.”

“Dad,” Kobik said, tugging on Tony’s robe. “I wanna go.”

“What?”

“I wanna go help.”

Tony closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then sat down on the side of Kobik’s bed, pulling her up close. “Honey. You wanted to live a normal life. That’s what you told us. That’s what we’ve been trying to give you. Normal kindergarteners don’t... do this.

“I want-- to know what it’s like to care about people,” Kobik said. “Loki’s people. And we owe him, so much.”

That’s not how Tony remembered it. “We do?”

Kobik nodded, earnestly. “Without Loki, I wouldn’t have come to live with you.”

“I did facilitate that arrangement,” Loki pointed out delicately. “And it’s done her a world of good. She seems more human than the last time I saw her.”

“And you want to undo all that progress with a few days’ jaunt,” Tony said sarcastically. But he was wavering. The fate of the universe, he had been informed, teetered on whether Kobik could learn _compassion_. He glanced up at Bucky, who had been uncharacteristically quiet.

“He did help you,” Bucky pointed out. “Pretty much as soon as he could, whereas Thor sort of… blew us off. I would still be a statue, if it wasn’t for his assistance.”

Tony stared at his husband. “You want us to just pack her off with him?” he asked incredulously. “This isn’t a sleepover with Freddie!”

“No,” Bucky said, “but we’re not entirely useless, or entirely human, either. There’s no reason why we couldn’t be of some assistance. Child of Fenrir, Thor called me.”

“I,” Tony pointed out, “am entirely human.”

Loki glanced at him. “You’re not, really. Not anymore. Magic wears off on the things around it. And you’ve got a sharp mind. You could learn, if you wished it.”

Tony... had rather suspected as much but didn’t want to think about it. He scrubbed his hands over his face. _Compassion_. “I suppose if we came along, to make sure she doesn’t forget who she is right now...”

“I am grateful,” Loki said. “And I would not wish to take her without your blessing and permission.”

But he would, if he thought he had to.

“You hafta,” Kobik said, sounding fierce. Tony glanced up and found her glaring at Loki, little fists propped on her hips. “You hafta use the magic word!”

“And which magic word would that be,” Loki wondered, and then he spoke a few words that sounded impressive, but made no sense in English. Words of deep power and meaning, perhaps.

“No, you silly. _Please_. You gotta say please,” Kobik insisted.

“Oh, you are kidding me,” Loki muttered, looking as if someone had just asked him to carve out his own entrails and eat them.

Tony covered his mouth with his hand, though he was fairly certain that everyone in the room knew he was laughing. “That’s... That’s good remembering, honey,” he told Kobik. “Good job.”

Loki made a face, chewed his lip, and then, sounding strained, “Would you, _please_ , allow Kobik and whatsoever other of your family wishes to assist, come to my brother’s aid?”

Tony suppressed a sigh. If Loki was going to follow the forms, so should he. For Kobik’s sake. “Very well, we agree. Give us some time to pack.” And, possibly, have breakfast. Tony hadn’t even made _coffee_ yet.

“I did bring a gift,” Loki offered, hesitantly, “to sweeten the pot, so to speak.”

Tony exchanged a glance with Bucky. He wasn’t sure he trusted a gift from Loki. But the point was to secure their agreement... “Oh? What is it?”

Loki reached into his long, leather coat and pulled out something that looked like a belt with a wolf’s head buckle. “It shifts, with the shifter, allowing clothing and other personal items to stay, tucked into a small side dimension. When you shift back, you’re still dressed. It’s a common enough thing on my planet, but perhaps of some use here.”

Bucky’s eyes had gone round.

“That... would indeed be extremely useful for us.” Not that Tony _personally_ objected to seeing Bucky’s naked body every time he shifted from wolf back to man, but it meant they had to be extremely careful about where Bucky changed, and carry a spare t-shirt and sweats everywhere, for emergencies. If Bucky could carry his things _with_ him... Yeah, that was no small gift.

“Then, if it pleases you,” Loki said, “I should like to have this breakfast Kobik spoke of. While you pack and gossip about me behind my back.”

Tony nodded. “Start the coffee while she’s making the cereal, and you’ve got a deal.”

“Very well, we do indeed, have a deal,” Loki said, offering Tony one long fingered, graceful hand to shake. With the other, he extended the belt. “Should you care to examine the gift. Wear or be holding whatever you wish to take with you into the ether, then fasten the belt. Take care not to attempt to bring another living creature into the ether. I’m afraid they would not survive the trip.”

“So much for keeping me in your pocket,” Tony said lightly. He ruffled Kobik’s hair a little, then reached out to catch Bucky’s hand and tug, heading back toward their room.


	2. The Space Princess

The belt was some unidentifiable material, neither leather nor some plastic-based fake leather. It wasn’t canvas or cloth, but something almost like semi-fluid metal. It slithered between Bucky’s fingers, feeling slightly warm to the touch, As if it were, in fact, _alive_. 

“I can’t decide,” he said, holding it out from him, as if it was an earthworm or some other sort of not-dangerous but slightly gross bug, “if this is cool, or seriously weird.”

“I don’t know why it can’t be both,” Tony said. He was digging through the closet for a backpack. “Miniature toolkit. Duct tape. Solvent?”

“What are we planning on dissolving,” Bucky wondered. Simple experiment first. Put the belt on and see if something horrible happened. He might be paranoid, but the last time they’d messed with a piece of Loki’s jewelry, they’d had just about the worst week _ever_. He fastened the belt over the sweatpants. “I’m gonna try this, so back up a bit.” 

The last thing he needed to do was transform and knock Tony over. Well, maybe not the last thing, but it was still down on the list of stuff to avoid. Shifting was still weird. For the first few seconds, he could literally feel the fur growing on him, the way his bones melted into some sort of gel before settling into new shapes, his mouth stretching and snout growing, teeth pushing through his gums, the way his eyes grew duller and his sense of smell stronger.

And then he was on the floor, all two hundred and fifty pounds of canine muscle. And because it was his habit, and his wolf-brain demanded it of him, he padded over to Tony and stuck his nose in the man’s belly, inhaling that scent that screamed _home_ and _pack_ and _mate_.

“Yeah, hi,” Tony said fondly, scratching his ears. “How’s it feel? You didn’t bust out of your clothes, that’s a good sign, right?”

Bucky turned himself around in an oversized circle, looking for traces of material. He didn’t feel any different as a wolf than he normally did. A little less complicated, easier to breathe. He felt stronger and faster. Wolves didn’t _worry_. Humans did, and werewolves did, a little bit. Like a fly in a room that he couldn’t quite swat. But it was always a _relief_ to wolf out. All the day-to-day human shit that made no sense to a wolf just went away.

He sniffed at his hindquarters. No fabric, not even the smell of it. While he was back there, he dealt with an annoying itch on his upper thigh, teeth scraping through the thick fur and nipping at the skin. That attended to, he turned back around and cocked his head at Tony. _It’s a thing. It happened._

“Well, change back and let’s see if it worked,” Tony said.

Bucky huffed, laying down and putting both front paws over his nose. He didn’t really _want_ to change back so quick. What he wanted to do was eat something and go for a walk in the park, and maybe snarf down a pigeon. He made a little yippy noise at Tony. _Do I gotta?_

Tony had gotten pretty good at reading Bucky’s meaning from the tone of his barks and tilt of his head. “I mean, Loki is sitting in our kitchen, eating sugar-laden cereal with our daughter, so I feel like we probably ought to be supervising that as soon as possible.”

Well, Bucky was dangerous as a human, trained CIA assassin, but he was at least ten times more dangerous as a wolf. That said, he couldn’t make sarcastic comments as a wolf. On the other paw, he couldn’t piss on Loki’s leg as a man. Decisions, decisions.

Finally he got up, nudged Tony back a little further. Yawned widely, letting his tongue curl, stretched his back. Wagged his tail. That action did not have any sort of equivalent in human terms and he sort of liked to get it out while he was wolfy. He’d gotten really good at switching. It no longer took an effort of will. More like… reaching for something on a shelf-- just a little bit of--

Effort.

He reached out a hand to steady himself against the wall.

Looked down.

“Well, it worked,” he said. “For one piece of clothing. So, that’s… yeah, that’s a decided improvement, really.”

“That’s fantastic, babe!” Tony crowded into his space again to kiss him, and then went back to loading up his backpack. “I _know_ Loki said this would only take a couple of days, tops, but do you think I should bring extra clothes? Blanket?”

“I want to bring exactly as much as I want to run with while carrying,” Bucky suggested. He knew that from his days before the CIA, when he had a full kit to carry when doing maneuvers around a God damn desert. Sixty to a hundred pounds of gear, armor, batteries, spare clips. Ug. Not doing that again. “Assume we can steal most things we’ll need. Where are we goin’, anyway?” Bucky didn’t need clothes. If it came down to it, he could wolf it out most of the time. And he was warm enough to keep his pack warm, while they slept.

“Fair enough,” Tony admitted. “Extra underwear, nothing else. Well, maybe socks. Walking in wet socks is miserable.” He threw a couple of pairs into the bag. “And his lordship didn’t say where we were going, exactly. Just that Thor was in a bind and it was his fault -- no surprise there, really -- and he needed Kobik to get him out of it. I don’t know. An intergalactic prison break? There’s something for the resume.”

“Yeah, right next to professional werewolf,” Bucky said. “That’ll be the day. Are we actually goin’ to _space_? That’s kinda cool.”

“I’d be willing to forgive a lot of aggravation if I got to go into space,” Tony admitted. He zipped his pack shut and slung it over one shoulder. “Let’s go find out, yeah?”

Bucky grabbed a tee-shirt and followed Tony back out to the kitchen. Loki had managed to liberate a giant popcorn bowl and had, in fact, filled it up with Lucky Charms, Trix, and Tony’s Rice Chex, poured what was probably a half-gallon of milk onto it, and was eating it with a soup ladle.

“Hungry?”

“You have _no idea_ ,” Loki said, dabbing at his mouth with his sleeve.

“They don’t have food where you’re from?” Tony wondered. 

Loki _had_ at least started the coffee, as requested. Probably good. Tony was never at his best without caffeine. He fished a pair of mugs out of the cabinet, hesitated, and grabbed a third. He poured for himself and Bucky, and left the third mug next to the pot, an invitation.

“I had to take a bit of a-- well, let’s call it a long-cut, shall we? To get here. There are several ways to leave Sakaar, but the ship I had wasn’t designed for any of the shorter routes. Almost seven months in the void. But don’t worry. I have a much better ship stashed here on Midgard for just such an occasion.”

Tony raised an eyebrow over his mug. “Why do you have a ship stashed _here?_ And where is Sakaar?”

Loki waved a hand over his cereal bucket, a flicker of green magic from his fingertips, and then the bowl was a map of stars, the marshmallows forming little planetary systems. “This is Midgard, here. And where I grew up. Asgard. My birth realm, Jotunheim. All the interesting stuff. Here-- here’s a black hole. A wormhole dimension. On the other end. Sakaar.”

“You really travel through a black hole?” Bucky wondered. “How does magic work with all the science?”

“You may as well ask why a werewolf can watch television,” Loki said. “The two things are not mutually exclusive.”

Kobik ducked her head around Loki’s arm to look at the star map. “Sakaar? En Dwi Gast?” She looked up at Loki. 

“He’s still in charge there, yes,” Loki said. 

“This could take longer than a few days,” Kobik pointed out. “Unless you want me to just crush the planet entirely.”

“We are not crushing any planets,” Tony said firmly, and then turned a glare on Loki. “What aren’t you telling us?”

“A great many things,” Loki said. “Most of them fall into the category of irrelevant at this time.”

“En Dwi Gast is my cousin,” Kobik said. “Or maybe a nephew. We didn’t keep particularly good track of time in those days. But, perhaps… you might say he was born some time very close after the birth of the universe. He came into being, directed by the Celestials. Different from my sisters and I. But very powerful, comparatively. Sakaar is not his home planet-- it is more... the planet he built to hold himself.”

“This sounds... ominous.” Tony took another swig of coffee and set his mug aside. “How does he factor into this particular jaunt?” he asked Loki, deceptively mild.

“The thing with immortal beings,” Loki said, with a glance at Kobik as if apologizing, “is that when they get bored, their games are-- well, quite a bit more destructive than your average teenager’s. He rules Sakaar and the people who live there. Born there, or imported, captured, kidnapped, displaced and rehomed. He’s… taken Thor. To be his champion in the great games. Where Thor will fight all comers, until he dies.”

“What, like... some kind of gladiator show? And you want us to do what, exactly?”

“Very little,” Loki assured them. “In fact, I already have a plan. I will offer -- he calls himself the Grandmaster these days -- an exchange. I’m almost certain I can find him a better champion. We’ll just… trade. But I need Kobik’s help. I’m good with convincing thinking creatures to help me. Silver-tongue, they call me. But… not so good with things that don’t have much of a brain.”

“I’m not reassured here,” Bucky said, taking a gulp of coffee. “What sort of… creature?”

“I’ll show you when I find it,” Loki said. 

“Do you have a specific candidate in mind, or are we just going to wander Sakaar hoping to find a champion?” Tony wondered.

“It calls itself ‘Hulk’,” Loki said. “And I’m not entirely sure where he is right now. He’s quite a bit stronger than I am, and I still have scars from our last encounter. I’m sure he would replace Thor as an able champion, quite handily.”

“This just gets better and better,” Tony sighed. “We’re supposed to, what, capture a creature who’s strong enough to best _you_ and then hope this Grandmaster is willing to give us a trade instead of just taking this Hulk and keeping Thor?”

“We’re back to me smashing the planet,” Kobik said, brightly. “It’ll be fun. We can pick through the wreckage.”

“No,” Bucky said, firmly. “No murder on a planetary scale.”

Kobik crossed her arms and pouted. “Meanie.”

“There are people who live on that planet,” Tony pointed out. “Many of whom, apparently, didn’t even have a choice about being there. It would be mean of you to take their home away and kill them, don’t you think?”

“Oh, well, if you’re going to put it that way,” Kobik complained. “Still, I haven’t smashed a planet in a long time.”

“Then you’re doing a very good job of breaking the habit,” Bucky said. “Congratulations. You can have a cookie.”

Kobik squealed with delight and ran over to the pantry to look through it for the promised cookie.

Tony rubbed a hand over his face in the way that meant he was once again trying to reconcile Kobik’s strength and maturity, and coming up more than somewhat short.

“All right,” Bucky said. This might as well happen, right? Adventures through the cosmos with his insanely godlike child and her bestest pal the ice giant. Life was just that weird. “Call Pepper and let her know we’re going to be unavailable for the next few days. And leave your cell phone here. I can’t imagine what the roaming charges would be.”

Tony pouted at him, but that was probably just pro forma, since he slipped his phone from his pocket and called up Pepper, strolling back toward the bedroom as he started talking.

Kobik was still occupied with raiding the pantry -- for an all powerful being, she had both a fondness for chocolate cookies and a penchant for liking to be told she’d _earned_ one. There was probably an advanced space-age psychology paper in there somewhere.

Loki was merely looking at him, almost expectantly. Bucky saw it unspooling, the way Loki would wait, patient as a spider-- screw it. “What are you really up to?”

“The situation is exactly as I described,” Loki said, too innocently. “There are, perhaps, some additional benefits to proceeding as I’ve said, but it changes nothing for you, or your family.”

Bucky had learned a few things about being a werewolf over last two years or more. He could control his shift precisely. He knew how to forage as a wolf, to exist in that world entirely. There were other tricks, slowly, he was picking up. But there were also things he just knew. _Instincts_. The way a person smelled when they were lying, for instance.

And what would happen if Loki was responsible for killing Bucky’s mate, or child.

“You know, I think,” Bucky said, “that I will kill you. If you hurt them.”

“You are a child of Fenrir,” Loki said. “I know him of old. I don’t doubt you’ll do him proud.”

“You guys look like stray cats puffing up at each other,” Tony observed, coming back into the kitchen. He had detoured through Kobik’s room and brought her little travel suitcase that she used when she had a sleepover with Bucky’s niece and nephew. “Did I miss the threats?”

“Yes,” Loki said, at the same time that Bucky clarified, “Not a threat, a promise.”

“Oh, good. Did you figure out what his angle is?” He leaned toward the pantry. “Are you eating an entire box of cookies in there?” he wondered. “We have things to do, you know.”

“No,” Kobik protested, although it looked like she’d only missed the mark by a single row of Oreos. 

“Loki’s plots have plots,” Bucky declared. “If we ever puzzle him out entirely, I think we’ll be mad. But he knows the consequences, if he screws us over. Which I think is the best we can do.” He left unspoken the thought that Kobik might try to go anyway, and at least with her parents holding the reins, she might not entirely undo her attempts to become more human.

Given what she could do -- destroy an entire planet for fun -- it seemed the best possible plan. For literally everyone.

“Right, well, we’re probably as prepared as we can get,” Tony said, clapping his hands. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“In order to avoid certain-- well, there are those sorcerers on this planet who keep an eye out for -- well, they have a list. And I’m on it. Do you have a vehicle? We need to go to Bannerman Castle. Up the River about an hour or so, and then we can borrow a boat.”

Tony raised his eyebrows, but nodded. “We have a car.” Most of Tony’s cars were sleek, sport models that barely fit two, let alone four, but they’d bought a nice mid-sized car when they’d adopted Kobik. “Where the heck did you stash this spaceship of yours?”

“On an island, in a castle. It’s a ruin, and while people pay to go look at the ruins, there are certain places where a little illusion fools them nicely. Don’t look at me like that, I have certain worshippers here on earth who support the museum and the people who work there. Consider it rent.”

Kobik skipped along. “We’re gonna go to a castle, and then we’re gonna be in a spaceship, and then we’re going to outer space. Can I be a space princess, Dad?”

“I thought you were already a space princess,” Tony said, pulling the car keys off the hook. “But sure, you can be a space princess.”

“We’re going to be stuck,” Bucky said, disgusted, “in traffic. With a trickster god. And a space princess.”

“Allow me to adjust the traffic patterns,” Loki suggested in such a way that Bucky knew it was not _allowance_ at all. Whatever. If it got them out of the city faster, that was probably a good thing. “Small magics do not attract the attention of the so-called Sorcerer Supreme. Although, he may ask you questions, later. You already know him.”

Bucky decided not to think about his veterinarian being any sort of mage-cop. And Loki certainly did… do something about traffic. Between his meddling and Tony’s driving -- taking advantage of every gap that Loki made for them -- they were upstate in relatively good time.

Not quite so good as to appear mystical -- the car never did go any faster than seventy -- but very good time, nonetheless.


	3. The Broken Engagement

Kobik put her foot down, literally, at the idea of stealing a boat. Instead, she hopped out of the car, walked down to the edge of the river. “Come on,” she said, placing her foot on the top of the shallow water, then strode out into the river, like the second coming of Christ.

“It’s not that I don’t have faith in your ability to warp physics,” Tony said, feet firmly on the shore, “but taking a boat is probably faster than walking. We can rent a boat, it’s not a problem.”

“I’m not warping anything,” Kobik said. “I’m encouraging molecular tightness in the bottom of my shoes. It’s more fun my way.” Her voice took on wheedling tones.

“You’re doing wonders with her,” Loki commented dryly, getting out of the backseat. “Truly, I am in awe.”

Tony ignored that. Parenting, Tony had discovered, was all about picking your battles. Localized and minor warping of physics (no matter how she phrased it) was a hill that Tony wasn’t willing to die on. What even was his life. “How far do we need to go?” he asked Loki instead. If it wasn’t very far, then it would probably actually be faster to let Kobik have her way.

“Not terribly far,” Loki said. He pointed to a side of the island visible from shore. “There, and only a little up that hill. Here.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small, not quite square, device. “If all else fails.”

Tony sighed and looked over at Bucky to see if his husband had any particular objections, then shouldered his pack with a sigh. “Fine. If you drop any of us in the water, I’m throwing out all the cookies.”

“I’m not dropping you,” Kobik said. “It’s not quite time for a bath yet. Also, this water is di’gusting.” If she did anything to encourage molecular tightness, Tony didn’t feel it happening, but when he stepped onto the water, it held him up as if it were solid. It didn’t quite feel like walking on the ground. More like walking on a kitchen floor that had cooking oil spilled on it. Just a little slippery.

“Yeah, uhhuh,” Bucky said. “Better to do this where I can’t think as much.” He straightened his shoulders and then shifted, bending onto all fours and coming up as a fluffy, enormous wolf.

“And he complains about _me_ bending physics,” Kobik muttered.

“It took me a while to get used to that, too,” Tony told her. “Also, his trick is a little more predictable.” He rubbed Bucky’s head, which was suddenly pressed against Tony’s chest, as it usually was right after a shift. “Hey there, sweetheart. Come on, let’s take a little walk.”

As tended to happen, either through some side-effect of magic, or conscious effort on Kobik’s part, Tony would never know, but no one seemed to notice one overly large wolf, a child, and two adults walking across the Hudson.

Loki held up his little box when they got closer and clicked it.

The air shimmered, almost like melting ice, and under the surface of that was a ship.

The metal was a shade of silvery green that reflected the light with ease, shiny and curved. Vaguely Y-shaped, it bristled what appeared to be weapons from the sides. “Welcome to the _Fragile Balance,_ ” Loki said. He clicked the box again and a ramp descended from the middle stem.

Tony took a couple of jogging steps and caught Kobik’s hand. “Don’t touch anything without asking permission,” he reminded her. And himself. He was going to have so much trouble _not touching things_ , he could tell.

Bucky pushed past them, bounding up the ramp. His posture was more tense than playful, and he sniffed carefully before barking for them to come up.

“My very own guard dog, how charming,” Loki said. He stopped at Bucky’s shoulder and made a soft, wolf-like sound, his face expressive… with something. Bucky stopped, yipped, startled, and then got out of the way.

“What the hell was that?” Tony wondered. He made his way up the ramp, somewhat behind Kobik’s skipping excitement, and curled his fingers in Bucky’s ruff. “What did you say to him?” That Loki was able to speak wolf was, honestly, only a minor surprise.

“It doesn’t translate well,” Loki said, “otherwise, I would have said it in allspeak. But, close enough, reminded him that this is my ship, and for the duration, I am the pack alpha.”

Tony hummed and scratched Bucky’s ears. “Aye-aye, Captain,” he said, looking around the ship’s interior. “How long is this trip going to take?”

“A few hours, barring complications,” Loki said. “Come, you can bunk here--” he gestured down one hallway. Tony had seen dozens of science fiction movies, but there were very few that showed the inside of a ship as being… well, messy. It looked like Loki had thrown a party in this vessel and neglected to clean up later. There were what seemed to be food and alcohol containers tossed in corners and a general aura of neglect. The room itself, once Loki opened the door for them, was at least relatively clean, a wall unit bunk and tables and chairs that were secured to the floor. “Make yourselves at home.”

“Sure.” Tony lingered in the doorway while Bucky slipped past to stick his nose in all the various nooks and crannies. It made him feel better if he could inspect new things and places before Tony went in. “We’ll be fine,” he told Loki. “Let us know when we’re there.”

“If you wish to observe the flight,” Loki said, waving a hand in front of what looked like a wall, and instantly, a screen appeared, showing the outside of the ship. “Or should you like a tour of the workings, I will come back to show you around, as soon as we’re in the lane.”

“Don’t speed in-system,” Kobik scolded. “It upsets the humans.”

“Another stray comet I’m certain,” Loki said. “They’ll hardly notice us.”

“I would love a tour,” Tony admitted. When would he ever have a chance like this again? “And yes, do try to avoid notice. When weird things start happening, Fury calls _us_ , and I don’t want to talk to Mr. Grumpybritches anytime soon.”

“Nicolas Fury is a cheap knock off,” Loki pronounced. “You may wish to sit when I take off. The motion will not throw you around like your movies, but some people find it… disturbing.”

Loki strode off and the echoes of his bootheels faded. Bucky stuck his nose outside the door and sniffed again, then sneezed, as if satisfied. 

“A cheap knockoff of _what_?” Tony wondered. He sat on one of the bolted-down chairs. It was fairly comfortable, allowing some range of motion. “I wonder what he means by _disturbing_.”

Bucky hopped up onto one of the bunks -- there was a small lip there, perhaps to keep the sleeper from falling off. He curled up, facing the viewscreen.

“A cheap knockoff of Odin,” Kobik said. “Who cut out his eye to gain wisdom.”

“Oh, right. Pretty sure Nicky didn’t give up his eye on purpose. Though who knows, with that guy?” He looked over at Bucky. “Bed comfy?”

Bucky wagged his tail a few times, thumping it against the mattress. 

“Liftoff in ten,” Loki’s voice came on. Tony whirled around to see a small projection, Loki sitting down, his horned helmet low over his brows.

Kobik stood very close to the screen, reaching out her hand as if to touch the sky.

Loki did not give them the rest of the countdown, but Tony could feel the engines -- they didn’t rumble so much as they _purred_ , a low vibration that built until his teeth were aching with it.

Bucky whined, burying his nose under the blanket.

The ship darted away from the ground, the sky going from blue to white to black in an instant and then--

Then they were out among the stars.

Tony’s inner ear insisted that they were _moving_. Except there wasn’t even that backward push you got in an accelerating vehicle.

“Okay, yeah. Disturbing. Got it.” Tony looked away from the screen for a minute to try to relieve the vertigo. “Couple of hours, he said, right?” Once he was more certain he was feeling stable, he looked back at the screen again, trying to convince himself that it was just like watching a sci-fi movie.

“Eight minutes to the lane,” Loki said. “We’ll be passing directly by your fifth planetary system, you may enjoy the view.”

Tony wasn’t sure he could blink if his life depended on it, his gaze glued to the monitor. With the distances involved in space and the speed they were traveling, it was definitely going to be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment.

Bucky curled up tighter in the bunk, but then a zip and flash of color out the viewscreen-- Jupiter was a marble in the image, huge and smooth and multicolored. A black patch covered a large section of cloud-- one of the moons passing over-- and then it was gone and Tony couldn’t look back at it, no matter how much he shifted in his chair.

“I can bring you back,” Kobik said, patting his hand. “We could stay as long as you like.”

“I know I’m supposed to be encouraging you to act more human, but I might take you up on that,” Tony said, eyes still focused on the viewscreen.

“Showing off _is_ acting human,” Kobik said. “So is doing things because you love someone.”

Bucky made a soft noise at that and hopped out of the bed, padding over to Kobik’s side and licking her hand. 

“Love you, too, Papa,” she said, hanging off the great wolf’s neck.

Tony smiled and leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “I have the best family.” He settled back into his chair with a sigh. “So. Tell us what we need to know about this place.”

“Sakaar,” Loki said, still speaking through the in-ship communicator, although he did appear to be moving, “is a cesspool. There are more than seventy lanes that dump out over the surface, and more form from time to time. Some planetary systems use the lanes as a -- quite literal -- dumping ground. Broken ships and trash and bodies all come tumbling out of the lane and onto the planet. I’m headed to the med bay now to mix up a few vaccines. If you want to meet me there, follow the floor lights.”

Well, that sounded terrible. Kobik was probably immune to pretty much everything, and Bucky’s immune system seemed more than usually robust, but the last thing Tony needed was to be brought low by the galactic equivalent of the common cold. “Right. Med bay. You guys staying here, or coming?”

“You go,” Kobik said. “I want to take a nap. Papa will watch me sleeping.”

Bucky nosed Tony’s hand in agreement, the very tip of his pink tongue darting out to lick Tony’s palm.

Tony petted Bucky’s face gently. “Love you.” He glanced at the viewscreen again, then turned to follow the lights.

The medical bay was almost disappointingly normal, although Tony supposed there was not much that high tech could do to improve on a few cots and cabinets full of tools. On the other hand the synthesizer was utterly fascinating. The interface unit -- and Loki kindly did something that allowed the words to appear in English, with a few exceptions (“untranslatable,” Loki murmured.) -- pulled up information about Earth life forms, blood strains, particular immune susceptibilities. 

“Oh, you’re highly resistant to Korbin hemorrhagic fever,” Loki said. “Good, that vaccine makes most people sick for a few hours just giving it to them. Shall we give you-- yes, probably, that’s good, there. In case the atmosphere is toxic. Rebreathers are so cumbersome, don’t you think?”

“I assume so,” Tony allowed. “How much of a shot am I going to need?” He poked at the interface unit curiously. “I don’t suppose it’s got any information in here for werewolves. Does Bucky need a shot, too?”

“It’s very unlikely. The few things he might be susceptible to -- well, let’s just say the bite is bad enough and he’s not likely to live through it to get an infection. Dragons are very thorough predators. The curse that allows James to change forms gives him much greater resistance to disease and injuries. I rather suspect he has not so much as had a cold since the shift happened?”

“Yeah, he’s pretty resistant to all the Earth-based stuff that’s communicable -- he caught the flu once, but that's it -- but I don’t know what you’ve got out here in space, and it’s entirely possible that his immune system would just be confused by it.”

“Well, various illnesses, pathogens, viruses, bacteria, and cultivars were usually made or evolved to work on the species at hand,” Loki said. “It is unlikely that you would, however exposed you might be, contract the Jotun Sweats, for instance. Your body chemistry doesn’t work that way, at all.”

“Fair enough.” Tony rolled up his sleeve and offered his arm. “Booster shot, let’s have it.”

“ _Shot_ ,” Loki said, then put one hand on the back of Tony’s neck, pushing his head down just a little. “Breathe this.” A puff of cool air hit Tony’s face that smelled like lemon and vodka and soap all at the same time.

“That’s... actually quite pleasant.” Tony looked up. “Seriously, that’s your vaccine distribution? An aerosol?”

“Generally,” Loki said. “We have a few skin-patches for some species that don’t have lungs the same way, although gas-filtering organs are quite common. Give it a day or so to make some changes to your system, and you’ll be able to filter your oxygen mix out of water, as well.”

Tony put a hand over his neck. “Am I going to grow gills? Loki, what the fuck.”

“No, don’t be ridiculous,” Loki said. He waved a hand over the display-- “Like this; you take the water into your mouth, hold it there for a moment, and then spit it out. Specialized micro-organs on the surface of your tongue will do all the work for you.”

Tony studied the diagram for a moment. “I can’t decide if you’re fucking with me,” he finally admitted.

Loki ran a very light finger down Tony’s cheek. His skin temperature was much cooler than a human’s, almost chilly. “Believe me, when I am fucking with you, you’ll know it.”

“Great,” Tony said drily. “There’s one for the diary, being trolled by an alien.” He sighed. “Are we done, can I have the tour now?”

“Unless you want other, custom enhancements, then yes,” Loki said. “Engineering, or Navigation?”

“Engineering,” Tony said. “Navigation won’t be interesting until we’re closer and there’s something to navigate around.”

“Right you are,” Loki said. “There are two drives aboard the ship--” Tony was lucky in that, among other things, he had degrees in engineering and physics, because Loki’s vocabulary started there and then jumped right off the fucking map. What he did gather was that the ship traveled either through real space -- that drive only capable of going three or four times the speed of light at the fastest, and generally used for in-system travel; and the gate-drive, which could drop them into a sort of fold-space, or through various wormholes, frequently referred to as _lanes_.

Tony absorbed as much of it as he could, asked questions where he thought he might be able to understand the answers, and looked as closely at the components Loki showed him as he could. Almost none of it could be applied on Earth -- several whole new branches of science and mathematics would have to be invented first -- but knowledge was knowledge.

“Of course, most of my brother’s people don’t travel like this-- Odin’s people were conquerors, and a ship and a lane means that someone could follow them back, perhaps. They utilize the Bifrost, which produces a custom lane, for each and every travel. You decide where you want to go, and pretty much, there you are. When you want to go home, you simply call the gatekeeper, who pulls you back. There are no permanent lanes anywhere near Asgard that can be navigated by ship. And all travel is under the King’s eye.”

“Tricky,” Tony said. “What happens if you lose your device for calling the gatekeeper? If you want to go from one place to another, do you have to go back to Asgard first?”

“There is no device; the gatekeeper can sense the location of everyone in the known universe with Asgard DNA,” Loki chuckled, not even a little bit amused. “It’s why I’m so hard to find, and it makes my brother furious. I’m not Asgardian. Adopted. With a great deal of effort, sometimes Heimdahl can find me. But only sometimes.”

“That’s quite the ability, detecting DNA over that kind of range. Asgard must have some impressive technology.”

“Much of it stolen,” Loki agreed. “As one of your great thinkers said, ‘magic is only technology that you do not yet understand’.”

“I’ve met some magicians who would disagree,” Tony said, smirking. “All right, so what about navigation, then? We must be getting close.”

Navigation was a huge room, like a reverse fishank. A slender corridor wrapped all the way around a core of densely packed light. “Here is us,” Loki said, pulling up a small band of stars with what looked like a wiggly piece of string running through it, and a little dot that Tony assumed was them. “And here is Sakaar.” 

More wiggly strings; the space around the planet looked like nothing more than a colander full of pasta. The lanes went off in every direction from there. “Sakaar is the trading post of much of the cosmos, and the dumping port for the rest of it. Dangerous; the only law here is the Grandmaster’s voice. What he says goes. The rest of it-- the strong take what they want and the weak try to survive.”

“And you want to bring Kobik to this place?” Tony stared at the little dot, but there wasn’t much else to be seen from here.

“I know she is trying to be-- mortal. To understand us, so that she has some sense of what the consequences are for her actions. But she’s not mortal. She’s an immensely powerful being, and on Sakaar? No one with half a brain cell is going to get in her way. They will just… think better of it, without ever being able to express it. Sakaar will be safe for her, in a way it is safe for no one else.”

“Even from this Grandmaster?”

“Well, I’d really rather avoid speaking with him until the very last possible moment,” Loki admitted. “It’s… _complicated_.”

“So give me the executive summary,” Tony suggested. “I’d really like to know what we’re up against, here.”

“Executive summary,” Loki said, scratching at his chin. “Well, after our little party last year, Heimdahl made an attempt to grab me-- remember what I said that he can sometimes sense my whereabouts? I made the mistake -- understandable -- of struggling, and I fell out of the lane. Fortunately or otherwise, I landed on Sakaar. It could have been worse, I suppose, but I’m not entirely certain _how_.”

Tony hummed thoughtfully, but didn’t really say anything. How could he, without knowing anything or anyone Loki was talking about.

“As it happened, I can be charming when the occasion calls for it, and I was working my way up through those in power so that I might be able to get a hand on something in the Grandmaster’s garage, so to speak. When Thor came after me, and-- did his usual thing, which is to say, made a mess that now I have to clean up. I do not, understand this, _like_ my brother. But I also will not, under any circumstances, _owe him_. He cannot do this, it is intolerable.”

Tony couldn’t help a snort. “Yeah, okay. Where does the Grandmaster fit in?”

“He, erm… might have gotten to the part where-- does anyone object,” Loki said, mumbling into his hand. “And of course, Thor has to object. Of course he does. The big lunk. I _refuse_ to be grateful. I’m certainly not going to leave him here as a martyr to some imagined salvation of my virtue. Which I have none.”

Tony blinked several times, trying to fit those puzzle pieces together. “He was going to _marry_ you?”

Loki’s skin went pale, and then blue, lips turning purple, and the air around him grew perceptibly colder. “In so much as the Grandmaster will have… a spouse. For as long as I would live, which wasn’t usually, in terms of his Consorts, particularly long.”

Tony could feel a headache coming on. He rubbed at his temples. “Right. So... Avoiding the Grandmaster, then, as much as possible. Got it.”

“Indeed,” Loki said. “He might well be happy to see me. Or… he might be insulted.”

“A disguise, maybe?” Tony suggested. “Let him think he’s dealing with strangers?”

“Yes, we can perhaps do that,” Loki said. “But first we must find our offering. The Grandmaster will not accept less than the best, in place of his current champion."

“This _Hulk_ ,” Tony said. “Tell me about him. Her? It? An alien, I assume. From where?”

“Him,” Loki said. “And no one knows, really. No one’s ever seen anything like him before. He’s not very intelligent, although he does talk. Which implies a limited intellect. But he doesn’t know where he’s from in a way to tell anyone else. _Home_ is all he’s said. He’s very strong, about twice your own height, and powerfully muscular. Green skin, black hair. Bipedal.”

Loki waved a hand over a disk on the control panel, summoning up an image. “He lives out in the wilds of Sakaar, and has done so for several years now. Not even the bravest of scrappers has been able to bring him in.”

“And that’s what you want Kobik for,” Tony murmured. “To capture this person so you can use him as bait.”

“So I can trade a destructive, annoying monster for a green giant,” Loki said. “Yes.”

“What if Hulk doesn’t want to dance to the Grandmaster’s tune?” Tony wondered. “I don’t know how things are where you’re from, but on Earth, even forcing dumb animals to fight for entertainment is considered cruel, much less real people. That’s the sort of life that should be chosen.”

“Fundamentally, I’m not considered a kind, just person,” Loki said, shrugging his shoulders. “And those who have chosen that life-- cannot seem to defeat my brother. The Grandmaster cannot be defeated. Not by you, or me, or Thor. Or all of us combined. The sort of effort it would take-- a planet’s worth of effort? If you’d like to start some sort of planetary uprising, I suppose that might work. But it would probably get a great number of people killed in the process.”

“I don’t know either of them; why should I value Thor’s freedom over Hulk’s?” Tony wondered.

“Limited opportunities, I suppose,” Loki said. “Even if I offered myself back to En Dwi Gast, he will not let Thor go free. I either resign myself to my brother’s fate, or I bring a contender and hope to win him back. What would you have me do?”

“Oh, I see your position,” Tony said. “It just seems like a crappy thing to do.”

“It is,” Loki said. “And other opportunities may present themselves. I am, after all, well known as a trickster god. But all tricks require an opening. Without a contender to present? I have no opening. It is not my desire, at all, to give En Dwi Gast anything that he wishes to have, no matter how small. Petty revenge, for attempting to bind me against my will. Perhaps the Hulk’s revenge will be-- exceptionally disastrous. I understand that he’s nearly flattened several cities at this point.”

“Mm.” Tony watched the wiggly strings in the navigation tube for a moment. “Well, we’ll see what happens. Sometimes, you have to make your own opportunities.” He tried to gauge from the wiggly strings how much longer it would be before they reached Sakaar, but it was all guesswork. “I think I’ll go back to my family now. Thanks for the tour.”

“Of course,” Loki said. “Do let me know if your brilliance comes up with a plan. It would have the advantage, I suppose, of being so simplistic that the Grandmaster would not know a plot was afoot.”

Tony did his best to ignore the dig at his intelligence as he left, but as soon as he made his way back to their room, he demanded, “Why are we helping him, again?”

Bucky raised a wolfy head up from the bunk and whined in Tony’s direction.

Kobik, who’d managed to either smuggle a coloring book with her, or had transported it to herself -- Tony decided he didn’t want to know which -- was diligently coloring the sky pink to overlook a frog and a monkey having a picnic. “Sakaar is the crossroads of the known galaxies,” Kobik said. “Nothing very important comes here, but everywhere important is through here. Something calls me -- it’s my time to be here.”

Tony sighed and sat down on the side of the bunk, burying one hand in Bucky’s thick fur. “But Loki’s such an a-- a jerk,” he complained. “I thought you were going to take a nap.”

“He is,” Kobik said. “It’s easy to help someone you like. And I decided I wasn’t sleepy. Do you think the monkey should be yellow, or green?”

“Green, obviously. You need to save the yellow for the frog.”

“I like frogs,” Kobik said. “Did you know they drink water through their skin?”

“I thought it was breathing they did through their skin,” Tony admitted. “Maybe it’s both?” He kept scratching at Bucky’s neck, feeling the coarse outer fur and the soft undercoat as they slid through his fingers, and let himself relax a little. They’d figure it out, the three of them.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Fragile Balance](https://twitter.com/atlantistvru/status/745471341709516800/photo/2) is a Stargate SG:1 episode and this ship is, in fact, Loki’s, in the episode. A little cross-genre callback for you.


	4. The Galactic Dumping Ground

Sakaar, quite frankly, _stank_.

Bucky whined, not really wanting to leave the dubious safety of the ship and step onto a planet that smelled like someone had sunk a body into the swamp and then distilled it to use for perfume.

Loki gave him a look, accompanied by another one of those not-quite-barks. _It’s said, at the end of the world, I will fight alongside the children of Fenrir._

Pompous, self-centered ass. Reminding him that his place, as a werewolf, as a child of the wolf, was at Loki’s heel. It wasn’t. Bucky’s place was at Tony’s side.

But there was still something compelling about it, something he couldn’t explain, that made him want to help Loki. Silvertongue, trickster god. Father of lies.

Bucky opened his mouth to breathe, but that was even worse. Now he could _taste_ Sakaar.

“Maybe I should have opted for the rebreather after all,” Tony said, picking his way over the trash that coated the ground. “This place _stinks_. I don’t know how you’re able to stand it, honey.”

Bucky wasn’t sure, either. If a smell could assault someone, this one certainly did. But if he switched back, he might be lacking fangs and claws at a critical moment. Switching wasn’t instant, and he thought he might better be able to protect his family as a wolf. 

Kobik, as usual, was already looking around curiously, poking at things without a care, and probably getting filthy in the process. 

The air opened up, not but thirty feet above them and Bucky knocked Tony out of the way as it started raining trash from nothingness. 

“Galactic dumping ground,” Loki said. “I can’t imagine a better place for us to fit in.”

Bucky cocked his head at that; Loki might not have meant it, but he did-- consider them a cohesive unit. An _us_. In a way that seemed to indicate that he didn’t have anyone else.

 _It’s easy to help someone you like_ , Kobik had said. Bucky shook himself all over and then trotted ahead, scouting the way through the heaps of refuse and dodging the random portals that opened up.

“So where are we going,” Tony wondered, “and how far is it?” He paused a moment to pull Kobik away from some apparently particularly fascinating trash.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Loki said. “This is the area where the Hulk was last seen. We should find a trail of destruction somewhere. Or he’ll come to us, curious to see who’s invaded his territory.”

“How would you tell whether there was a trail of destruction? Everything here is in ruins anyway.”

Bucky put his nose to the ground, trying to differentiate between the stinks. Trash and rot, the atmosphere itself, and-- people? Something alive, at any rate. He woofed, low and soft, to get their attention and then trotted along the scented path. It wasn’t a worse stink than the rest of it, but it wasn’t perfume, either.

Something that probably hadn’t bathed in a while, at least. Unless you counted a good, hard rain.

Not far, and they came to the remains of a downed aircraft of some sort. It didn’t look like the spaceship that Loki had brought them on, and it smelled badly of burned metal.

Tony walked in a wide arc toward him, eyeing the ship curiously. “Unless you’re going to tell me that alphabets and other writing systems fall naturally into a small handful of types, that looks like it came from _Earth_ ,” Tony said. “The origin markings are too scorched to read, but those letters are definitely Earth-based. European in origin, or maybe Russian.” He glanced back at Loki. “How did this get here? Is Sakaar at the far end of the Bermuda Triangle?”

“Holes in the lanes form everywhere,” Loki said. “It’s possible there’s a vortex on your planet. Open just long enough to take something, and then leave it here. Barely noticeable by your _radar_. A glitch. An electrical storm. A ship, lost at sea, never found again.”

Bucky whined, then trotted to the top of the next pile. How would they know a swath of destruction? 

By the wide open desolation. There was a lot of nothing over the next hill except flattened trash. Vehicles that had been twisted and wrecked, remains of bodies and beasts.

In the middle of all that was a pile, too deliberate to be a stack of junk. 

More like a _lair_.

“Well, that looks ominous,” Tony remarked. “Be careful, honey. Don’t get too close. Kobik, can you tell if there’s anyone in there?”

“Let’s go knock and find out,” she suggested, skipping neatly out of Tony’s reach. Bucky yelped and then chased after her, which he knew was stupid. She could probably throw him to the moon -- one of several, apparently, above Sakaar -- if she wanted to. 

Closer, and it smelled--

Like _human_.

“Damn it-- Kobik!” Tony hissed. He was scrambling his way across the ground toward them.

The thing that came out of the lair was huge. Bucky was almost three hundred pounds of fully grown wolf, but this creature was as big as an elephant, probably weighing more than half a ton. Bucky skidded to an abrupt halt.

“PUPPY!” the creature yelled. It didn’t look particularly friendly and Bucky had sudden images of being scruffed like a kitten and tossed aside.

“That’s a Hulk,” Loki said.

“Oh my god,” Tony breathed. “He speaks _English_.”

“Of course he does,” Kobik said, taking another few steps forward, holding out her hand like she was offering it to a strange, but not hostile, dog. “He’s from Ohio.”

Bucky blinked in surprise. _What_?

“He’s from Earth. Why didn’t you tell us he was _from Earth_ , you asshole?” Tony wasn’t trying to be quiet anymore. “That was his plane, back there, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t ask,” Loki said.

“PUNY GOD,” the Hulk bellowed, coming a few thundering strides forward. His feet were almost as big as Kobik’s entire body, and Bucky found himself, hackles up, next to his daughter. “COME SEE HULK AGAIN?”

“It’s okay,” Kobik said, softly. “They won’t hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“HULK NOT _SCARED_! HULK NEVER SCARED!”

“Then you can sit down with me,” Kobik said. “I brought you a picture. I colored it myself.” She took out a piece of paper from her pocket, unfolded it and offered it to the creature.

In Hulk’s hand, it looked like a movie ticket, or a scrap of receipt. “FOR HULK?” It was hard to say that it wasn’t a lower bellow, but it seemed to be less… growly.

“It’s official,” Tony murmured, and when had he gotten so close to Bucky? “Our daughter can charm _anyone_.” He took another few steps, and this time Bucky heard them before Tony’s hand dropped onto his back, resting there lightly. “How can he be from Earth? I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

Bucky rather pointedly looked down at himself and then back up at Tony.

“I’ve _heard_ of werewolves before,” Tony retorted. “I don’t even know what to _call_ this guy.”

The entire ground shook and several piles of trash behind them shifted as the creature sat down.

“HULK-- HULK-- Hulk sad…” the creature said. “HOME. This-- is…” The creature was shrinking, twisting and writhing, skin going peachy pink, muscles disappearing, the hair going from straight, ragged black to greying and curly.

A moment later, a man was there, oversized pants practically falling off his hips. A man with a squint, looking confused, like he’d been woken suddenly in a strange place. 

“Well, so much for a contender,” Loki said, sighing.

“Holy shit, you’re _human,_ ” Tony said, darting forward. “What-- How-- Are you okay?”

The man looked up, squinted again. “You’re-- you’re Tony Stark, aren’t you?”

* * *

“Okay, I’m… I’m real confused now,” the man said. He patted around on the ground like he was looking for something, feeling at his chest like he expected there to be a pocket.

“What... do you remember?” Tony asked. “Do you know where you are?”

“Ug,” Loki said. “Do we have to get its life story now? As far as a failure of a plan goes, we’re out the old plan and they don’t seem to be growing on trees.”

“You--” the man said, squinting at Loki. “I know you.”

“I have never seen this man before in my life,” Loki protested.

“Here,” Kobik said, holding out-- a pair of glasses in one hand. “I think you lost these.” Tony was quite positive she hadn’t had them a second ago.

Tony ignored Loki and went even closer, crouching next to Kobik in front of the man.

The man put the glasses on. “I have no idea where I am now. I-- the experiment went really wrong. I was on the run. There was a special strike force sent to deal with it. Man by the name of Fury--”

Bucky yelped, crabbed forward on his belly. A moment later, the wolf dissolved into a man. “Wait. Wait, _Dr. Banner_?”

“Banner? I know that name,” Tony said. “Amazing, unparalleled work with anti-electron collisions.”

“You’re Tony Stark,” Banner responded. “Everyone knows who you are. And-- am I going crazy, or weren’t you a wolf like ten seconds ago?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “My ex-boss, Fury? He didn’t like me anymore than he liked you. I read the file on your case. The rumor was you’d been killed.”

“No,” Banner said. “I… when I get mad, I get big and very scary. They drugged me, I was unconscious, and the idiots put me on a plane. When I woke up… I turned into the other guy. I don’t-- really remember what happened after that. Where am I? What day is it? And why do I know that guy? I don’t remember knowing that guy. I feel like this whole situation is just designed to stress me out. I don’t deal well with stress.”

“Okay, so as established, I am Tony Stark,” Tony said. “This is my husband, Bucky. He’s a werewolf. This is our daughter, Kobik. She’s not... actually human. And that guy is Loki, and if you vaguely remember not liking him very much, then you are vaguely remembering correctly; he’s an asshole.” He didn’t bother trying to keep Loki from hearing that summation. “We’re on, ah, another planet. Your plane fell through a wormhole, apparently. That’s cool, right? I have to admit, about every third breath I take I have a little internal squee because I’m breathing _another planet’s air_.” If anyone of this group could understand that, it was probably Dr. Banner.

“I have to say, for a teenage dream come true, this is not what I expected it to be,” Banner said, looking around. “It doesn’t look like another planet, it looks like Detroit.”

“Four moons,” Bucky said, pointing at the sky. “It’s another planet.”

“I only see three,” Banner protested. As if that mattered. Earth only had one.

“Werewolf. Trust me, there are four.”

Tony wondered, suddenly, how their trip through space had affected Bucky’s lunar sixth sense, but this probably wasn’t the time or place to be worrying about it. “Yeah, I was hoping for more cool alien biology and less rotting garbage, myself,” he admitted. “But still. Another planet! Anyway, we’re here because the guy in charge of the planet is holding Loki’s brother hostage, and we kind of owe him a favor, so we came to try to help spring him.”

“Concise, if not entirely accurate summation,” Loki said. “And here we are, with no contender.”

“What’s he talking about?”

Tony sighed. “Thor’s being held as a gladiator. Loki’s hoping to find another contender to take Thor’s place. Your enormous green ragemonster was on the shortlist, though I swear we didn’t know you were human in there.” Tony still had his doubts about whether Loki knew, but probably Dr. Banner didn’t need to know that.

Banner scratched his chin thoughtfully. “It’s not like he--” he tapped his forehead “--isn’t in there, all the time. Not entirely in my own interests to stay here, but it’s not like I have a home on Earth anymore, either.”

He took another look around the surrounding area. “But this planet… kinda sucks.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty awful. I’d ask if you knew of any other likely candidates, but it sounds like you don’t really remember much of the last... while.”

“He’s still the best candidate,” Kobik said, sitting down on the ground cross-legged. “But we all need to go home again.”

“Just how much room do you think I have on my ship,” Loki snorted. “Barely room on there for my brother’s ego and Stark’s at the same time. Add one mutant human and we’ll be lucky to break gravity’s hold on the ship.”

“Then maybe you should be careful not to make him angry until we’re safely back on Earth,” Kobik suggested.

Tony studied Dr. Banner. “Anger triggers the change? Interesting. Do you think it’s a chemical reaction based on the change in testosterone/cortisol ratio?”

“Speculatively,” Banner said, “the blast of gamma radiation I took broke down the genetic code -- chromothripsis. Because of the test serum before the radiation, my genes and body were able to repair itself. But it was sloppy, undirected. Now, the flood of hormones causes this epigenetic switch. I think. It’s a working hypothesis. I was still trying to find a cure, or at least a way to manage the condition, when the military decided to try recruiting me. I objected -- strenuously. I haven’t been able to spend time in a lab, obviously for quite a while now.”

“Fascinating as this is,” Loki said, tapping his foot. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be out here in the open. With no plan.”

“Well then, let’s come up with a plan,” Tony said. “What else can you tell us about this contest?”

“It’s fairly simple,” Loki said, “if aggrandized. The Grandmaster has a number of gladiator shows for sport, and then, if a contender presents himself, or herself, or themselves, Thor is sent out into the ring. He wins. There’s supposed to be some sort of cash prize if the contender wins. Any number of bets and wagers go on, how long the contender lasts, that sort of thing. And then the gladiators are sent back to the slave pits. It’s the bread and circuses that keep this planet under the Grandmaster’s thumb. I intended to offer a wager. My champion, for his. Or, really, in this case, you. I don’t think I should get that close to him. He might see even through my illusions.”

“What illusions?” Bruce asked.

“This, to start,” Loki said, and he-- shifted. His skin went blue, and he grew, not as tall as the Hulk, but certainly taller than Bucky. His skin was marked with extensive scarifications, and his eyes were brilliant red. “Behold, an outcast frost giant, abandoned by his people, and taken in by his enemies.”

Tony suppressed a shudder; it really was an eerie transformation, even if transformations in general bothered him rather less than when he’d first met Bucky. “So I’m supposed to go in there and offer a trade, if my champion can beat Thor,” he mused. It probably wouldn’t be the _most_ hostile audience he’d ever faced. He hummed, scuffing the dirt with one toe absently. “What about the slave pits? Can we incite a rebellion? Or just sneak Thor out of there?”

“It’s impossible to get in,” Loki said. “I’ve tried it. I’d need to be able to move a mountain-- _literally_. The colosseum is built on top of the pits.”

“I haven’t seen a wall yet that Hulk can’t go through,” Banner said, thoughtfully. “The problem is-- he doesn’t respond too well to direction, and he’s apt to attack anyone who threatens him.”

“ _I_ could take down a wall,” Kobik said cheerfully.

“You can’t be a contender,” Tony pointed out. “The Grandmaster would recognize you, even in your current form.”

“Not if she didn’t exist in this particular dimension,” Loki said, thoughtfully.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Bucky complained. “If she’s not here, she can’t help. Even if I thought it was a good idea, which, I don’t. Slaves and slave owners are not really what you’d call a good environment.”

“I was referring to your belt,” Loki said. 

“ _What?_ ”

Tony narrowed his eyes at Loki. “You’re not serious.”

“Perfectly serious,” Loki said. “It combines all our best assets. Practically foolproof. Although I might change my mind about that later. My brother is a colossal fool.”

“I can’t put Kobik in the belt, you said no living things--”

“Papa, I’m not a _living_ thing,” Kobik said, very earnestly.

“You are _not_ sending my entire family into a _gladiator ring_ to try and -- what, telepathically tell Thor to throw the fight?” Tony edged between Loki and Kobik.

Banner chuckled darkly. “He won’t have to throw the fight.”

Loki gave Banner two thumbs up. “I will, in fact, gladly pay to watch you beat him against the wall for a while. What? He’s hard-headed, it won’t damage him permanently.”

“Something for everyone, right, Dad?” Kobik asked. “I help my friends. Dr. Banner gets to come home to Earth. I’m sure you can talk to Director Fury about him, help him out, right? Loki gets his brother back. You’ll get to talk to all sorts of interesting aliens up in the Grandmaster’s box. And Papa gets to see how powerful he really is. He’s always been scared of _himself_. Now he doesn’t have to be.”

Bucky made a soft, choking sort of sound, like swallowing a sob.

“Everyone is _risking_ something pretty big there, too, honey,” Tony argued, but his gaze lingered on Bucky. “Sweetheart? What... what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking-- I mean, four moons, think about how _big_ I could be. Also, I sort of owe Thor a good thwap on the head.”

Tony wanted to protest. He wanted to put his foot down and refuse. He wanted to beg Bucky to stop thinking about it, not to put himself in the way of danger to life, limb, and freedom...

But he couldn’t. Kobik was smiling brightly, pleased at having figured out a solution, and Bucky was, he could tell, already working out the tactics. “You...” He swallowed. “You think you can do this.”

Bucky turned to Loki. “That hammer of his, is it silver?”

“Even if it was -- which it’s not -- he doesn’t have it right now,” Loki said. “We’re not quite sure where it is.”

“No silver,” Bucky said. “He can’t kill me. And he’s a god. I probably can’t kill him either.”

Banner sighed. “And I can’t be killed. Tried it once. Put a bullet in my head. The other guy spat it out.”

Tony closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against his eyelids until he was seeing bursts of color in the darkness. “So I’m going to march up to the colosseum with two... monsters, apparently, and offer them as a team to fight Thor. And Kobik will be tucked into another dimension inside Bucky’s belt. And you--” He eyed Loki suspiciously. “What will you be doing?”

“Preparing our strategic retreat,” Loki said. “Hopefully under cover of a slave rebellion, a thing for which this planet is long overdue, and will keep the Grandmaster from following us immediately. And, in the meanwhile, keeping the illusion that my brother, the great green beast, and the werewolf are all among the slaves rebelling.”

“You will be fomenting chaos,” Tony summarized. “Well, it’s best to play to your strengths, I suppose.” He reached out and snared Bucky’s shirt, pulling his husband closer. “Be careful,” he demanded. “Don’t you dare get hurt.”

“I’ll look after him, Dad,” Kobik promised.

“We’ll look out for each other.”


	5. Fomenting Chaos

The Grandmaster’s palace, or throne room, or whatever you wanted to call it -- was in terrible taste. Overblown, gaudy, practically exploding with demands for attention and displays of the Grandmaster’s power and superiority.

Perversely, that made Tony feel somewhat better. He’d dealt with powerful people before. He’d dealt with this particular _brand_ of powerful person before -- the kind that was afraid that they’d be forgotten if they weren’t continually shoving themselves in people’s faces. They were, in the long run, easier to manipulate and ultimately less dangerous than the ones who wielded their power with quiet and deadly precision.

Tony pulled on his persona and marched across the room, loftily ignoring the guards who paced him, weapons leveled. He stopped a precise fifteen feet from the throne and bowed deeply. “Grandmaster, I beg the boon of your ear.”

“Oh, ho, well, now, here’s a new person,” the Grandmaster said, smacking his lips and rolling his eyes as if someone had just presented him with a triple decker cupcake and ice cream sandwich. “A boon, yes, yes, of course, come here, come right over here and let me look at you. Delicious. What do you call yourself?”

“Tony Stark, your grandness.” He came a few steps closer and bowed again. “I have brought a challenge for your champion.”

“My… my grandness? Oh, I like that, I do like that, huh. Topaz, take a whatdoyoucallit?”

The strict, beefy-looking woman at his side, nodded sharply. “A memo, my lord.”

“Yes, that, do one of those. With, you know, a little kick…”

“An edict?”

“That’s the ticket,” the Grandmaster said. “I’m sorry, you were saying you-- had something for me?”

“A challenge,” Tony repeated. “A pair of fighters to match your champion.”

“Oh, well now, that’s delightful, just delightful. They’re in the pen? Come, come along, hop on, do you think I walk anywhere?” He gestured to a-- floating platform, only a few inches above ground. “We’ll take a look at your challengers, and won’t that just be fun. Topaz, Topaz, my darling, will you please just run along and tell them to get ready?”

Tony stepped up onto the platform, suppressing the desire to peer underneath it to try to figure out how it worked. “I think you’ll be pleased,” Tony said blandly. He’d certainly been terrified when he’d turned Bucky and the Hulk over to the keepers.

“Stark, Stark, let me see now,” the Grandmaster mused, looking at Tony with a particular intensity, rubbing at his chin. That little blue stripe there was either a tattoo or some really good makeup, because it didn’t smear even a little bit. “Terran stock, I suppose? I’m impressed, yes, very impressed. It’s delightful that you’re here, and at my palace, too. Are you honored? Yes, of course you are, of course it’s an honor. I’m just that-- what’s the word I’m looking for? Topaz? Topaz-- ah, she’s run off again, and just when I needed a word.”

“Impressive, your grandness?”

“I can tell, we’re just going to be great friends, Stark,” the Grandmaster said, putting an arm around Tony’s shoulders. Up close, the Grandmaster smelled… very good. Spicy, somehow, that reminded Tony of the first sip of his first cup of coffee in the morning after Hell Week at MIT. “We’ve got a lot in common, yeah, I can tell that, right away. A _lot_ in common. And here we are, the pits. Careful, you don’t want to step in-- yeah, just like that. Bring them forward. Let me see what we’ve got here.”

Tony waved his token at the keepers, who wandered off into the maze of the pits. Tony ignored the painful twisting in his stomach and focused on looking confident and eager. “I think you’re going to enjoy this,” Tony said. He certainly hoped so, or their whole plan went up in smoke.

Banner had, apparently, not liked being put in captivity very much. He thundered up to the gate, roaring with rage, trying to poke fingers through bars that were much too narrow. He slammed fists on the ground the size of boulders, practically shaking the ground. “Puny god,” he sneered at Tony -- or maybe at the Grandmaster, it was hard to tell.

Bucky, on the other hand, was fully wolfed out. Bigger, Tony thought, than the last time he’d seen his husband, by at least a good four inches and broader through the chest. 

Bucky very seldom snarled, and had never done so to Tony. 

The noise that came out between sharp, ivory fangs was chilling. His muzzle pulled back a few times and his growl came right out of his chest, a thick, predatory rumble.

“A boy and his dog, oh, that’s delicious, cupcake,” the Grandmaster said, “now, uh, the beast, does it… _eat_ the fallen?”

“Not usually,” Tony said, “though who can say, in the heat of battle? They’re a matched set, even if it doesn’t look like it. Sheer brawn, and vicious cunning. I think they’ll be a match for your champion.”

“Hmmm, yes, yes, I can see that,” the Grandmaster said. “You have to understand, my champion is quite the warrior, but it should be a fun match, yes, don’t you agree Topaz.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Yes, my lord. Quite entertaining. The stands will be packed.”

“Entertaining enough,” Tony agreed. “Though I find a wager adds a certain spice to any event, don’t you?”

“Oooh, yes, it does,” the Grandmaster said, smacking his lips again. “I, heheh, I like you, yes I do. What sort of wager would you like to make? I’m, yes, I am, assuming you mean for more than just coin.”

Tony scoffed. “Why would I gamble for coin? Boring. No, I was thinking, if my contenders defeat your champion... I want your champion.”

“Ha ha ah!” The Grandmaster rubbed his hands together, delighted. “That’s confidence, right there. I like that, you know what you want and you go right for it. What will you wager, in return?”

“My own champions, of course,” Tony said. 

The Grandmaster, who seemed to be constantly in motion, twisting his fingers together, gesturing, rocking back and forth, went still, considering the notion. “Hmmm, well, yes, I can see that. This one-- with some training, he could be very useful to me. That thing, though? Well, I could always use a new ornament.”

“A rug, my lord?” Topaz suggested.

“A rug? No, heavens, no, that’s terribly gauche, why would you say that? Ug, yuck, disgusting. No, no. But he might be a nice guard dog on the _Commodore_.”

“The _Commodore_?” Tony asked idly.

“It’s my, uh, my special ship,” the Grandmaster said. “For my birthday parties. You’ll love it.”

Topaz rolled her eyes again. “It’s your birthday again next week, my lord.”

“Well of course it is,” the Grandmaster said. “It’s always my birthday. Time works, uh, a little strange here. On like any other planet, I’d be like a billion years old, but here, I mean, uh, just look at me. I’m _impressive_.”

With that, he put his arm around Tony, steering him back to the little platform, and when Tony stepped up, the Grandmaster gave him an utterly unnecessary boost. Which included rather a lot of grabby hands on Tony’s backside.

Behind them, Bucky’s snarl got suddenly louder, and he barked angrily.

“ _Feisty_ , what’s that, like do that again. I like that, too.”

Tony glanced back over his shoulder at Bucky. _We’re all doing things we don’t like, here_ , he tried to project. “When are the next matches?” Tony asked instead.

“Topaz?”

“Whenever you want, my lord.”

“Right, right. Of course, come this way, your godship. Look, look, there--” The Grandmaster pointed into one of the other pens. “Look, it’s a Stark! Isn’t that just-- what a crazy random happenstance? You there, Stark, come here, come over here.”

The man -- or, at least, Tony _thought_ it was a man -- roared at them, displaying a fiercely pointy scowl. His skin looked as if it had been burned, healed badly, and then scraped with a cheese grater, and what hair he had left had -- at best -- a nodding acquaintance with soap and comb.

Tony was hard-pressed not to recoil. _Alien_ , he reminded himself. For all he knew, this thing was a prized beauty amongst its own kind. “Are you suggesting that this is one of my relatives?”

“No, no, of course not,” the Grandmaster said. “Unless you were up to naughty things with his mother. He’s a _Stark._ You know, from the planet of Stark. One of your followers. Ah, ha, see, Topaz, he’s modest, doesn’t like to admit it, but _I_ know. A god always recognizes another god.”

A _god?_ Tony had known the Grandmaster had delusions of grandeur, but apparently he suffered from a few other delusions, as well. “I have to admit, I’ve never heard of the planet Stark. But it sounds like the sort of place my father would have enjoyed.”

“So many followers, he doesn’t even know them all,” the Grandmaster said, clasping his hands together. “And just think, Topaz, I can say I know him. _Personally_.” 

The Grandmaster let the disk float them back to his palace. “Topaz, have them put a room aside for our distinguished guest, and the very next sport can be-- _tonight_. Would that be soon enough for you?”

“Certainly, your grandness,” Tony agreed. It was sooner than he’d even hoped. He’d be glad to have this whole adventure over and done with.

* * *

Bucky was going to bite someone, and that right soon, if he didn’t get out of the cage. It hadn’t taken the guards long to realize that he had a vulnerability to silver and used it to keep him in a pen.

Probably to keep them from getting into scuffles before the main event. Whenever that was going to be.

Hulk had gone to sleep; not that he was particularly entertaining company even when he was awake. And no one else spoke any variety of wolf. So, mostly, it was like being back in the Army. Hurry up and wait.

With the added problems of an infestation of some sort of space flea, plus being kept in a cage he could barely stand up in.

Thor had better be damn grateful, was all Bucky could think about it.

Finally, someone was rolling them out -- watching a bunch of alien guard-types wake up the Hulk was hilarious, as a matter of fact -- toward a staging area.

Someone threw open the door to his cage and Bucky bounded out. Pain lanced him as the guards struggling with Hulk shoved him back against the bars.

That silver agony was--

He lost control.

Bucky’s man-brain took a backseat, and he moved through the beast, and embraced it. His bones creaked and ached and burned, and when it was over, the guards were gone. Dead or fled, it didn’t matter, and Bucky was up on hind legs, man-shaped body at least as tall as Hulk.

He snarled.

“PUPPY!” Hulk enthused.

Well, at least they were on the same team. 

Time to get… feral.

“HULK SMASH!” Hulk insisted, banging on the heavy gate that led out into the gladiator ring.

Hulk Smash, Bucky thought, and he hoped the beast would smash in the right direction. He could already smell Thor; familiar if still strange. Ozone and apples and magic. Bucky snarled again. He owed that man a good kick in the teeth. He wondered, for just a moment, where Loki was, what Thor’s brother was supposedly doing, and then the gate was opened.

Bucky bounded out; not quite running on all fours like a wolf, and not straight up like a man, but bounding along, like some sort of three-legged monster. Far, far faster than he could have moved in either shape. He got to the center of the ring, threw back his head, and screamed defiance at the moons above him.

A deafening roar went up around him, the crowds in the stadium cheering -- or jeering. It was almost loud enough to drown out the Hulk’s bellow of fury as the beast loped across the sands, though Bucky could feel the vibrations of his steps. “PUPPY PLAY!” Hulk demanded.

Thor was there, in armor, with a fierce helmet. In one hand, he held a war shield, edged with spikes, and in the other a plain sledgehammer. Not the ornate and alien weapon he had before, although this one looked more massive, it didn’t feel quite the same. But sparks flickered along the edge of Thor’s skin, reflecting in his eyes.

The creature that Bucky was didn’t feel fear. Just an animal rage.

He charged, jaws opening impossibly wide to bite and rend and claw and destroy.

Hulk thudded along in his wake, not quite as fast but even more solid. “HULK SMASH PUNY GOD!”

“I don’t want to fight either of you,” Thor said, almost calm. “Barnes, Banner. Stand down and surrender. I’ll see that you are not harmed.”

Bucky felt more than saw Hulk’s derisive sneer. “HULK FIGHT!”

Somehow, they worked together as a team, the monster and the beast. Bucky charged in, then dodged behind their foe, attempting to hamstring him. His teeth closed on immortal flesh and he could taste blood, ancient and powerful.

Thor swung and there was mass and force behind that blow. The sledge caught him in the ribs, threw him nearly twenty feet, head over tail until his claws dug into the ground, slowing him and bringing up upright. 

The stadium itself was filled with thousands of screaming aliens. The Grand Box, however, held only a few dozen, richly dressed. Tony was there, and Bucky saw him--

He was pale-faced, hands clenched tightly in his lap, though his lounged posture might have fooled anyone who didn’t know him as well as Bucky did. His eyes were fixed on Bucky, mouth pressed in a thin line. When he saw Bucky looking up at him, he nodded, just a bit.

Everything was riding on this; their family, their lives, their freedom. Bucky couldn’t afford to get carried away because of a little bit of blood lust.

Thor and Hulk were locked in struggle, exchanging blows that practically cracked the planet under them.

Bucky charged back in, flanking, trying to get into the god’s blind spot when he couldn’t look over his shoulder, launched himself at Thor’s back.

The smell of blood and sweat, the Hulk’s shouting, the cacophony of the crowds. A hint of ozone was Bucky’s only warning before lightning burst from Thor’s body, crackling over them all in an agony of searing electricity.

It threw them back, but made the Hulk madder. 

Bucky found himself scrambling out of the way as Hulk grabbed Thor by the legs and slammed him bodily into the ground half a dozen times, leaving the god half buried in a crater. Bucky made a soft woofing sound, scratched some dirt into the hole with one hind foot.

The crowd went crazy, screaming and yelling. Illusions and fireworks exploded around them. Bucky wasn’t sure if they were being declared the winners, or being attacked.

The Hulk huffed, apparently satisfied, and screamed back at the crowd. It only made them more exuberant.

Thor groaned, and Bucky leaped down in the hole with him, put one long, hair-covered hand around the god’s throat. Loki could speak wolf, maybe Thor could, too. _Surrender. We’re here with your brother._

_Surrender._

Bucky watched the god’s pride war with his need to be released from this enslavement. And, of course, as Bucky could easily understand, being rescued by one’s kid sibling was a nightmare.

Loki would never, ever let Thor forget this.

Smiles, even ones of good humor, did not translate well to Bucky’s monstrous face.

Thor closed his eyes with resignation, letting his fingers relax on the haft of his sledge.


	6. Just About Enough Pamphlets

“My Lord,” Topaz said, urgently, running into the Grand Box. 

The Grandmaster looked astonished at her rudeness. “Whatever can the matter be?”

“The slaves are revolting!”

“I, uh, I don’t like that word,” the Grandmaster said, delicately.

“Revolting?”

“I know they’re revolting. Dirty, unwashed, poor, smelly. Revolting. I meant, the-- uh, the S-word.”

“Slaves?” Topaz’s face wasn’t really made to express astonishment. It tried really hard, though.

“Yes, that’s, that’s not a, uh, yeah, nice word.”

“Right, my Lord,” she said. “The workers without pay are in an uproar.”

_Stall_ , Tony thought. _Give them as much time as possible to get out_. “Of course they’re in an uproar,” he said. “It was a very exciting match. I feel positively giddy, myself.” That was nothing but the truth; his hands were still shaking from the leftover useless adrenaline.

Topaz glared at both of them. “They are taking up arms against you, My Lord,” she spluttered. “We need to get you to a place of safety!”

The whole stadium suddenly shook as something exploded. Tony found himself on the floor on his hands and knees.

“Come, guest of the Grandmaster,” a guard said, laying a very cold hand on Tony’s shoulder, “I will protect you and get you back to the palace.”

“I’ll be fine,” Tony said, climbing back to his feet. “You should protect the Grandmaster.”

“He has plenty of protection,” the man said, squeezing. He could swear he was getting frostbite from the man’s skin, even though the layers of clothing he was wearing. “Tony, come with me.”

Tony glanced up and saw the guard’s eyes flash briefly green before fading back to red. _Loki_. “Right,” he said. “Yes, that’s probably a good idea, after all.”

“Turns out,” Loki confided as they raced down the hallways, dodging frantic attendees, other gladiators, guards, civilians, and servants, none of whom seemed specifically after them, but none of whom seemed exactly non-violent, either, “not a lot of chaos was necessary. This civilization’s been ready to tear itself apart for _years_. I met a man named Korg who had ideas. And a great number of pamphlets.”

“Pamphlets,” Tony repeated. He threw Loki a disbelieving look, but couldn’t hold it long -- he was in too much danger of bumping into one of the other people running through the halls. “Right. Where are we going, then?”

“Where else?” Loki gestured toward the part of the stadium that was ruptured and currently on fire.

“Of course.” Why were so many aliens so _tall_? Tony bounced up onto his toes as they strode along, trying to catch a glimpse of Bucky. Or the Hulk, that seemed like a creature that would stand out in a crowd.

“This way,” Loki said, grabbing Tony’s hand and tugging him down a side corridor. His bones _ached_ from mere moments of Loki’s touch. “Shortcut. Or at least, fewer people.”

There were probably fewer people because of the overwhelming stench in that hallway; like something rotten had gotten in a fight and killed something-- Tony didn’t even know. He did know that his lungs attempted to climb right out of his sinus cavity at the stench. It was even _worse_ than the rest of the planet, which Tony had mostly gotten accustomed to.

“Oh my god what the _fuck_ is that?” Tony spoke without thinking and then clapped his hands over his mouth. As foul as the air smelled here, it _tasted_ worse.

Loki stopped, made a gesture with one long-fingered, blue hand. “If you will allow it,” he murmured. “It’s nothing more than illusion.” He offered Tony something golden and wispy, like cotton candy, or living smoke.

Tony hesitated, then cupped his hands around it. Instantly, the stench in his nostrils was replaced with the smell of metal and clean oil, coffee and the slightly musty scent of Bucky’s fur. It smelled like _home_ , almost sharp and clear enough to make Tony’s throat close with longing. “Okay,” he grated out, determined not to let Loki see him so moved. “That’s. That’s better.”

Loki nodded, just as brusque, and led them down the abandoned shaft toward-- the pits, apparently. “The Grandmaster never intended to honor his bargain,” he said. “He was having your husband and your Hulk dragged off to be slaughtered. If they could manage it, which, truly, I have my doubts. Thor is this way; he has entered the Odinsleep, of all the possible inconsiderate timing to go into a Godly coma. I will fetch him, bring him here. Go to the end of this hallway, you should be able to see your friends from there. Lead them to me, and we shall all leave.”

Tony peered down the hall and took a deep breath. _Home_. He nodded. “I’ll meet you back here as soon as we can.”

Loki nodded, and slid away toward the infirmary. Tony’s direction… was louder. More violent. There were tussles and murders going on, it seemed, no matter which direction he looked.

He had long since learned that the best way to not be asked what he was doing was to act as if he had every confidence that no one would dare stop him to ask him what he was doing. He strode past acts of violence and mayhem with a rock-solid “do not fuck with me” face, scanning ahead of him for Bucky and the Hulk.

They were not difficult to find, being at the absolute center of the mayhem. At some point, Bucky had shifted around from that monstrous creature and was back in his wolf form, deep black and maned with a grey ruff. Kobik was perched on his back like he was a pony, and she was wielding a weapon that looked like one of those Sailor Moon magic wands she had in her toy chest back at home.

Wherever she’d gotten the inspiration for it, that wand was no toy. She struck someone with it who attempted to snatch her down off Bucky’s back and the man disintegrated into dust.

“Bucky!” Tony yelled, lengthening his stride. “Kobik!”

“Daddy!” Kobik shrieked, grabbing Bucky’s ear and using it like a rudder, turning the giant wolf around.

Tony opened his arms as Bucky barreled toward him, pulling his little family close. “Oh thank god you’re all right,” he breathed. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

“Papa says he’s having loads of fun,” Kobik translated. “But he doesn’t think the floor is very stable anymore. There’s a crack down to the planet core under us. We should probably go.”

“Yeah, that sounds bad,” Tony agreed. “Let’s go -- Loki’s getting Thor and will meet us.” He gestured back the way he’d come.

Bucky shook himself, like he was coming out of a dog-bath, dumping Kobik onto Tony and all but knocking him over. He howled once, and then trotted directly through the Hulk’s line of sight, getting his attention. By the time he got back to Tony and Kobik, Bucky was running flat out. It was hard to tell if he was leading the Hulk, or running away from him, but in either case--

“Here, hold on,” Kobik yelled, and Bucky snapped them up, like Tony was some sort of stray kitten, tossing him into the air, where he landed awkwardly on a furry back.

Kobik steadied him, stronger than any real four-year-old could possibly be, until Tony managed to sink his hands into Bucky’s fur and get a tight hold on that soft gray ruff. He’d snuggled with Bucky as a wolf before, often, but never ridden him -- big as Bucky’s wolf was, it wasn’t big enough for Tony to ride. Apparently, the extra moons did make a hell of a difference. “Just down this hall,” Tony said, knowing Bucky’s sharp ears would catch it despite the noise. “All the way to the end, and then turn left.”

Bucky rumbled deep in his chest, and continued running--

\--Screeched to a halt at the lip of an improbable chasm. Half the building had been torn away, and there was a crack, leading into blackness.

“Shit.” Tony curled one arm protectively around Kobik, lest she decide to lean forward and investigate further. “Okay, we’ll have to find a way around.” Tony looked around, but there were no clear indications of the best direction. Where the fuck was Loki? “Let’s try that way.” He pointed.

There was no that way. A few moments later, quite a lot of angry people with weapons were charging in their direction. It might not have been too bad; Bucky and Kobik were basically stab-proof. But Tony wasn’t.

Hulk could probably clear them a path, but the number of the dead was going to be high--

“Did you miss me?” Loki said, and accompanied by his voice, he was doing something with his hands that opened a hole in reality. On the other side of the hole was the _Fragile Balance_. “The ledge looked unstable, I thought it best not to risk it.”

“You are provisionally forgiven,” Tony said. “Let’s go, quick!” He glanced behind to make sure the Hulk was still following.

Bucky leaped through the portal. Tony had heard the phrase spaghettification as a description of what it was like to pass through a black hole. He would like, very much, to go back in time and rewrite his brain about not having that happen, ever again. Both in the not hearing about it, and in the not experiencing it.

He was probably going to puke the next time someone served him spaghetti, too. Everything in his body squished, flattened out, and then reformed, while he was entirely aware of it. It didn’t hurt, thank fuck, but it was probably the least pleasant half second of his entire life.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” he gasped, patting himself down to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. The _shape_ it was supposed to be. He realized, a couple of seconds later, that Kobik was still seated in front of him and probably shouldn’t have been exposed to that sort of language, but it was the kind of experience that absolutely warranted it. He’d apologize to her later. “Let’s _never_ do that again.”

Bucky staggered forward a few steps and then the great beast went to his knees before rolling over, knocking both Tony and Kobik to the dirt, whining. By the time Hulk came through at a run, Bucky was back in his human form. “I-- yeah, I agree, can we just not?”

Hulk stopped short before he stepped on anyone, which was nice, since he probably weighed about eight hundred pounds at _least_. “WHERE HULK?”

“My dear,” Loki said, extending one hand to Kobik and dusting off her dress for her. “Do you think you could do something about our green, angry friend? Right now, he won’t fit in my ship safely, and I would very much hate to leave him behind.”

Kobik gave him a look. She’d adopted that look from her Aunt Becca, who used it when her own children had just told some horrendous lie. All the blood drained out of Loki’s face and his expression was one of near-terror before he composed himself.

“Excuse me, Mr. Banner,” Kobik said. “The sun’s getting real low, big guy. Can we think about going home now?”

“HULK GO--” The Hulk staggered a little, then fell to his knees and began to shrink.

“That is _so_ disturbing on a scientific level,” Tony observed. “Where does all the _mass_ go?”

“You were a kitten about a year ago,” Bucky said, shaking his head. “I don’t ask these questions anymore.”

“All right, then,” Loki said. “Lady and gentlemen, shall we get aboard and get off this planet before someone comes looking for us? My daft idiot brother is in medical, and the sooner I can get him home, the happier I will be.”

“The only one who can make the ship go is you,” Tony pointed out. “You get to Navigation; I’ll get my family and Dr. Banner into the guest room.” 

“I can make the ship go,” Kobik protested, but she let Tony lead her up the ramp.

“Not until you’ve got your space driver’s license, you can’t,” Tony said. He paused to offer a hand up to Dr. Banner, who was still crouched on the ground, looking pale and mildly disoriented. “Let’s go wait this out somewhere comfortable, hm?”

“How old do I have to be to get my space driver’s license?” Kobik demanded.

“Somewhat over nine-hundred and thirty, on Asgard. Your local calendar might vary somewhat,” Loki called over his shoulder.

“Let’s start with regular ground driving,” Tony suggested. “Master movement in two dimensions, topologically speaking, and then we can talk about adding a third.”

“Technically--” Loki started to say, a pedantic tone in his voice, “if you are considering space drives and wormholes-- Do get buckled in promptly, we have incoming fighter-ships.”

“Yes, we’re going,” Tony said. “And I said what I said. Two dimensions before three. Three dimensions before multi-dimensional string vectors.” He nudged Kobik down the narrow hall toward the room they’d been in for the trip from Earth.

Bucky threw himself onto one of the cots, grabbed the webbing and rolled himself up like a little burrito. “Do not wake me up for anything other than death. Or dinner.”

Tony smiled fondly at his husband, then set about making sure Kobik was properly strapped in. “Seatbelt, please, Dr. Banner. And then I’ll answer all your questions.”

They got strapped down; the belts were more like webbing that came over their shoulders and sealed itself over their waists, but it seemed secure, which was good, because literally the first thing Loki did as soon as they were airborne, were several barrel rolls.

“Oh, I don’t think I like space travel,” Banner moaned.

“Technically, this isn’t space travel yet,” Tony pointed out. “Once we’re properly in space, we won’t feel the shifting gravity when he pulls this sort of nonsense.”

“Oh, no gravity, that’s so much better,” Banner said. “How, I mean, I know who you are, everyone knows who you are-- how did you get mixed up with a crazy alien and a werewolf?”

“I’m not sure we have time for the _whole_ story,” Tony mused. “Hm, let’s say I didn’t know he was a werewolf when I met him, and now we’re married. The crazy alien is mostly Fury’s fault.” Tony paused, considering that. “Yeah, definitely Fury’s fault. But then the crazy alien introduced us to our charming daughter -- adopted -- so it was an overall bonus. At least, it was until he showed up wanting our help to rescue his brother.”

“Not to be the selfish asshole in the bunch, because really, that sounds very brave. Or very stupid, I can’t really tell,” Banner said, “but-- uh, what happens now. I mean… to me? On Earth? I’m not exactly well liked.”

“I can’t imagine why not,” Tony said. “You can stay with us while you get your feet under you, if you like. You’d like Stark Tower. Top ten floors is all R&D, it’s like candyland.”

“Might be nice to get back to work,” Banner said, scratching his chin. The ship went through another series of zig-zags, then--

“We’re entering one of the portals, hold on, not entirely sure where we’re coming out. Or when.”

“Well, he’s as crazy as a bag of cats,” Banner suggested mildly.

“You’ll get no argument from me,” Tony agreed. He glanced at the viewscreen. “Kobik, honey, is there anything you can do about the pursuit that wouldn’t kill them? Just... send them back to Sakaar, or something?”

“Um, did you want to see a dinosaur?” Kobik asked. “Because I could move us, just a little bit, toward the edge of the wormhole, and we’d go back in time, but they’d stay in the same timestream. I’ve never seen a real dinosaur, just paleontologist's very bad reconstructions.”

“They’re doing the best they can,” Tony told her. “And that sounds like a fun field trip, but maybe not until you’ve explained some of the physics to me and made me feel more confident that we would be able to get home afterward.”

“I could move them into the edge?” Kobik said. “I’d be jealous, but they’d be dead long before we had to worry about them again.”

“That sounds like something they wouldn’t be able to get home from, either,” Tony pointed out. “Which is probably not really in line with avoiding harming them. If you can’t just slow them down so they can’t catch us or something, then that’s fine; we’ll just have to rely on Loki’s driving.”

“Do I want to know what is even happening in this conversation?” Dr. Banner asked plaintively.

“Probably not,” Kobik suggested. “Okay, how about this--” and she waved her hand. Several brightly colored crystals ended up in a heap on the floor in front of Tony. “Without those, they can’t travel particularly fast. They can get home, but it will take them a few weeks, at less than light speeds. They probably won’t starve or run out of air, but I’m not taking responsibility for it if they kill each other out of boredom.”

“That’s... probably acceptable,” Tony agreed. “Thank you.”

“They sometimes make bad choices,” Kobik said. “And this way, we have money, if you want to go to space again.”

“We have money?” 

“Xandar crystals are highly valued,” Kobik said. “If someone takes care of their drive crystals, they can last generations, but they’re very rare. And sometimes they crack. The only better fuel pods for space travel are Anulax Batteries, and those are strictly controlled by the Sovereign.”

“I... see. Well, we’ll be sure to take good care of them, then,” Tony said. And possibly also to sneak one into his personal lab for analysis. “Next time we go to space, though, let’s find a planet that doesn’t smell like an armpit, though.”

“I’d like that,” Kobik said. “There are lots of fun places to visit. I’d like to see them with these eyes. It’ll be exciting. Like going to Disney.”

“Sure. Only somewhat more educational. For me, if not for you.” Tony ruffled Kobik’s hair fondly.

“So, she’s an alien, too,” Dr. Banner surmised. “And you adopted her, because why not, you already have a werewolf as a spouse?”

“I’m not an alien,” Kobik said. “Alien implies I don’t belong somewhere. I belong _everywhere_.”

“Strictly speaking,” Tony told Dr. Banner, “she’s not even technically _alive_. But she wanted to give this whole _mortal life_ thing a try, so we’re doing our best for her. It’s slightly more complicated than that, but that’s the nutshell summary, yeah.” He grinned. “Werewolf, cosmic entity on an educational field trip, the occasional alien dropping in to eat my cereal... You and your other guy would fit right in.”

“Cereal is astonishingly tasty,” Kobik said. “We should bring some, when we go to space. I can think of a lot of people who’d want to try it.”

“We’ll stock up,” Tony promised. “What do you say, Banner? Ready to throw in with the delightful insanity that is our little crew?”

“You know, I think perhaps I might,” Banner said. “And, please, call me Bruce.”


	7. Epilogue

Kobik always looked cute; it might have been one of her superpowers, Bucky thought. But she never looked more adorable than whenever she thought she was going to get a scolding.

She’d come home from school with a letter from her teacher in a sealed envelope.

“Miz Grey wanted me to give this to my parents,” she reported, chewing her bottom lip and scraping her foot nervously against the ground.

Tony looked up from the tablet he was using to model... something. Bucky had tuned the details out after the first few words. “Did you get in trouble?”

“I don’t _think_ so,” she said. “I didn’t do anything _weird_.”

She had gotten in trouble several times, as a matter of fact, for stuff that the teachers couldn’t really explain, because “she did magic” wasn’t on the form. They always seemed to have wonderful excuses for how she’d managed to get on top of the school, or crashed the entire student lunch debt computer.

Tony hummed and reached for the envelope. “You don’t always realize when you’re doing it,” he pointed out. “But they don’t usually send a note home for the little stuff.” He split the top of the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper, filled with the sort of very neat, loopy handwriting that all teachers seemed to have.

“What’s she done this time?” Bucky wondered, trying to look stern and concerned, and not like he wanted to pick his daughter up and squish her and promise ice cream until she stopped looking so sad. He sometimes thought Kobik was going to get spoiled, really.

Like most kids with loving parents, he decided.

Tony read over the letter quickly, then backed up to the top, reading more slowly, a slight frown on his face. “Apparently, she wrote a little essay about her trip with us to Sakaar. Sort of a ‘What My Family Did On Vacation’ kind of thing.” He glanced up, looking first at Kobik, and then at Bucky. “With pictures.”

“Uh-- do we have to go in for another one of those parent-teacher conferences?”

“No...” Tony said, looking down at the letter again. “Apparently, Ms. Grey thought it was _very imaginative_ , and wants permission to submit it to a publication of children’s stories.”

“A _made up_ story. About going to space,” Bucky said. He could feel his mouth twitching as he tried to decide if that was a good thing. “Well, it’s not like it could possibly be real. Is there anything in that story about werewolf dads? Because most of the world knows that werewolves don’t exist, but I’m pretty sure Fury would have Words about it. If it got back to him.”

Kobik rounded her eyes at him. “Don’t be silly. Everyone knows there’s no such thing as werewolves in _space_.”

“Imagine my relief,” Tony remarked. “Though really, I think a story about a colony of werewolves living on the moon would be interesting.”

“I think that’s a very impressive accomplishment, Kobik,” Bucky said. “Imagine, being the father of a _published writer_.”

“So, I didn’t do anything weird?” Kobik asked, obviously wanting to be reassured.

“You do any number of things that are weird,” Bucky said, “but that just means you fit right in with our family. This-- on the other hand, this is _cool_.”

“Extremely cool,” Tony agreed. “I didn’t get published for the first time until I was almost thirteen, and that was some boring scientific journal.” He grinned at Bucky. “This might just call for some cookies.”

“Yay! Cookies!” Kobik danced around for a few minutes, then went to raid the pantry, to see what kind of cookies they had today.

“Let me look at these pictures,” Bucky said, getting up to lean on Tony’s shoulder. “Did she get your good side?”

“Excuse you, _all_ my sides are good sides,” Tony said, mock-offended, as he turned over the letter.

They were not, in fact, all that different from most first grade art. Rocket ships that were smiling, and weird colored sky, and anatomically impossible stick figures with elaborate hair and wearing clothes that didn’t fit their stick bodies.

But there was something about them--

He could almost taste Sakaar’s sky, could hear the jovial tones of the Grandmaster’s speech. 

“That’s very, very good.”

“Of course it is,” Tony said, sliding an arm around Bucky’s waist. “She’s our kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap for this story! Hope you enjoyed this little dash back in to the Forever Home 'verse!
> 
> Next Sunday, we'll resume posting [For Want of a Nail](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24928297), our centaur!Bucky / human!Tony story. We started posting it on the assumption that it was going to be a shortish story that we were throwing together to knock out some bingo squares... and then it just. kept. growing. (This is not unusual for us, really. You'd think we'd have learned our lesson by now.) So we put it on pause and added it to our regular rotation. And now that point of the rotation has come around, and it will pick up with Chapter 2 next Sunday!


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